Warren A. Bechtel
Warren A. Bechtel (born September 12, 1872 in Freeport (Illinois) , † August 28, 1933 in Moscow ) was an American building contractor and engineer and founder of the Bechtel Corporation .
Bechtel graduated from Peabody High School in Peabody, Kansas , where his family owned a farm and shop, in 1891 , and married Clara Alice West of Aurora, Indiana in 1897 . From 1898 he moved as a subcontractor in railway construction through the western United States, first in Oklahoma, where he started with a few mules that he still had from his farm. He acquired knowledge as an engineer self-taught and at work. In 1904 he was a supervisor for the construction of the Western Pacific Railroad in California and in 1906 received a contract as a subcontractor (with his friend George S. Colley) for a section (Oroville to Oakland). To do this, he rented a steam excavator, and later he used the latest construction machinery and technology whenever possible. Another trademark he followed early on was working with other construction companies.
He built railways and roads in California, for example a 171 km long stretch of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad completed in 1914 (their first major contract) and the Klamath Highway from 1919 and from 1921 the tunnels for the Caribou hydropower plants in the Sierra Nevada.
In 1925, the WA Bechtel Company was officially founded by him and his sons Kenneth (Ken) Bechtel, Stephen Bechtel and Warren Bechtel Jr. and his brother Arthur. They built Bowman Lake Dam in Nevada in 1926, built their first 13 km pipeline in California in 1929 and were one of the Six Companies involved in the Hoover Dam (commissioned in 1931; the construction itself was not completed until 1936 and was one of the largest construction projects in the History). They also entered into a collaboration with other companies on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Bechtel died during a visit to Moscow at the invitation of the Soviet government of an accidentally administered insulin overdose. His son Stephen D. Bechtel became the company's successor.
Self-taught himself, he had all of his sons study at the University of California at Berkeley, although they all left without a degree when their father needed them in the family business.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bechtel, Warren A. |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American contractor and civil engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 12, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Freeport (Illinois) |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 28, 1933 |
| Place of death | Moscow |